Anne Sexton Poetry as Therapy Essay - 1439 Words

Anne Sexton: Poetry as Therapy Many great literary and artistic geniuses have been troubled with deep depression and mental illness. Anne Sexton is an example of a poet with such problems who used her personal despair to inspire her poetic works. Not all of Sextons work is based solely on her mental health; but a good portion of her work is influenced by her constant bouts with depression. As she struggled to deal with her own marital infidelity and the problems associated with being a female poet in a male dominated genre, she combined the theme of depression with one based on the roles of women in society. In turn, she gained a wider audience and received recognition for her work. But all the fame and fortune were not enough to†¦show more content†¦Anne married Alfred Muller Sexton II, or Kayo as he was affectionately called, in 1948, despite the fact that she was engaged to another man at this time (Middlebrooke 20-23). Anne did some modeling at the beginning of their marriage and the couple lived with Kayos parents for the first few years. Annes infidelity began early in her marriage to Kayo. She fell in love with a friend of hers and Kayos named Johnny who was a medical student at Harvard. Despite the fact that she claimed the relationship never got physical, the damage was already done. The couple did not divorce but this was just the beginning of Annes repeated marital infidelity (Kumin xix). Anne had many affairs while Kayo was off fighting in the Korean war despite warnings from her mother. It was around this time that Anne first began seeing a psychiatrist (Middlebrook 20-29). When Kayo returned home from the war, life for the couple went fairly back to normal. They had their first child in 1953. After the birth of their child, Annes mental state when from bad to worse. Anne was constantly in a state of panic and worry about her children and hated being left alone with them. The last straw was when Annes great aunt died in 1958. Anne attempted suicide by taking an overdose of Nebutal sleeping pills shortly thereafter. After this incident, her visits to the psychiatrist became more frequent and involved. Dr. Martin Orne, one of Annes psychiatrists, began encouraging her to write poetry as aShow MoreRelatedCreativity vs. Psychological Health of Anne Sexton1173 Words   |  5 Pagesthat suicide is considered and often attempted. When the poem writing by Anne Sexton entitled Her Kind you can closely compare how Anne’s mental health affected her poetry and how her poetry affected her mental health. The American Pulitzer Prize–winning poet Anne Sexton took her own life in 1974 via carbon monoxide poisoning before reaching the age of fifty. Her life and work are especially interesting because her poetry was clearly tied to her own psychiatric treatment. She began writing withRead MoreConfessional Poetry Essay1640 Words   |  7 PagesConfessional poetry is a style that emerged in the late 1950’s. Poetry of this type tends to be very personal and emotional. Many confessional poets dealt with subject matter that had previously been taboo. Death, trauma, mental illness, sexuality, and numerous other topics flowed through the works of the poetry from this movement. Confessional poetry was not purely autobiographical, but did often express deeply disturbing personal experience. (Academy of American Poets) Three importantRead MoreAnne Sexton : An American Poet1216 Words   |  5 PagesContext: Anne Sexton was an American poet born on November 9th, 1928 in Newton, Massachusetts and raised in Weston. Her family was successful economically wise and Sexton was raised in a middle-class environment; however, Sexton’s relationship with her parents were extremely strained and perhaps abusive; her father was an alcoholic. It was suggested that Sexton may have been sexually abused by her parents and felt that they were hostile to her. As such, Sexton sought refuge in her close relationshipRead MoreMary Sexton s The Grimm Brothers And Anne Sexton948 Words   |  4 Pagesforgot to invite the twelfth wise woman. The twelfth wise woman enters the feast full of anger and cast a horrible spell on Briar Rose. This story of Briar Rose has evolved over time into two stories by different authors, the Grimm brothers and Anne Sexton. They each have different perspectives on the author’s past and the role of the father making. These differences make the fairy tale propose two dif ferent struggles of both social level and a broken family. Authors’ viewpoints are often shownRead MoreSylvia Plath And Anne Sexton1782 Words   |  8 PagesConfessional poets in the 1950’s and 1960’s shaped confessional poetry into a type of writing that forever changed American literature. With controversial subjects at the time such as death, trauma, depression and how relationships impacted people, confessional poetry carved a gateway for private subjects and feelings to be expressed through autobiographical writing. The inspiration behind confessional poetry was the therapy it brought to the writer, being able to take personal experiences and thoughtsRead MoreAnne Sexton2598 Words   |  11 PagesAnne Sexton believed that the most interesting poetry was written out of personal experience. Everything she had been through, her hospitalization, her affairs, her insanity, the loss of her parents, and great-aunt, gave her things to write about. She uses poetry as one of her outlet. She writes out her problems. Her writing was a part of her therapy. As a child, Anne Sexton had to be the center of attention, a demanding child (Self-Portrait in Letter 3). When Anne was younger, she thoughtRead MoreEssay about Influential Poets of the Beat Generation1460 Words   |  6 PagesBeat Poets of that Generation of writers were Allen Ginsberg and Lawrence Ferlinghetti. The Beat Generation poetry was the first poets to write about non-conventional subjects as well as using different forms of expression in their works. This generation of poets greatly influenced poets such as Anne Sexton, who wrote about personal experiences as well. The Beat Generation’s style of poetry have influenced many generations of poets after them. The Beat Generation of Poets started in the 1950s andRead MoreAnalysis Of Sylvia Plath s Poem, She Stripped Away The Polite Veneer1590 Words   |  7 Pageslandscape of poetry by illustrating the potential for it to be a deeply personal art form. In an article dedicated to the memories of Sylvia Plath, Margaret Rees writes: â€Å"She stripped away the polite veneer. She let her writing express elemental forces and primeval fears. In doing so, she laid bare the contradictions that tore apart appearance and hinted at some of the tensions hovering just beneath the surface of the American way of life in the post war period.† As Rees shows, Plath’s poetry broughtRead MoreSylvia Plaths Personality, Perspective, And Poetry1810 Words   |  8 PagesOn October 27, 1932, a dramatic metamorphosis was born into the poetry and literature world. This revolution was Sylvia Plath. Born to Otto Plath, a German immigrant who became a graduated college professor, and one of his students , Aurelia Schober, she would soon become one of the most influential writers of her era. However, early in her life, her father died of diabetes mellitus. This was a common form of diabetes that was easily treated in that time period, but her father had allowed ignoranceRead MoreThe Taboo Of Silence3339 Words   |  14 PagesPlath’s ‘Ariel’ (1966) collection it is the brutality of the reoccurring ‘Holocaust metaphor’ and pastiche to confessional poets such Anne Sexton that asserts the argument of both faith and mental illness being a personal relationship with the self and effectively a struggle with identity, effecting relationships with others which is expressed both in Plath’s own poetry such as ‘The Applicant’ and in Ted Hughes ‘Birthday Letters’ in poems such as ‘Fever’ . Within McEwan’s ‘Enduring Love’ (1997) it is